President Pranab Mukherjee signs the NEET ordinance

New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday signed the ordinance to defer the uniform medical entrance examination (NEET) from all other medical entrances by state boards as well as private medical colleges.

The ordinance was approved by the Union cabinet on Friday and sent to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, on Monday. .

The signed ordinance set aside the Supreme Court order of holding the national level entrance test for all medical courses from this year itself.

Backgrounder:

• A meeting was held till late night, on Monday, to exclude states from the common medical entrance test NEET at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
• Health minister J P Nadda also went there to clarify on few points raised by President Pranab Mukherjee.
• The meeting lasted for about two hours.
• The President had earlier asked the health ministry to explain the reason for taking the ordinance route to keep state boards out of the ambit of NEET, sources added.